Page:The American Indian.djvu/121

Rh the favorite design concepts are the simple checker textile pattern and the step or "terrace." Again, if we look almost anywhere in the Pueblo area we shall find these patterns occurring. They have so sure a place in textile art and lend themselves so much less readily to freehand work that a non-pottery origin is suggested. Quite recently a localized tendency toward realistic pottery painting has come to notice in southwestern New Mexico, but even here we also meet with the familiar geometric designs.

Adjoining the southwest and east of the great basketry area is the bison area, which is weak in basketry and cloth, but still has a highly developed embroidery of beads and quills in which the designs are geometric and manifest many of the characteristics of textile designs. In fact, the way in which beads and quills are handled in this area requires that designs be built up by accretions of small rectangular surface contours, which is just what we have in weaving. If our general principle of technique limitations holds, we should expect to find geometric forms prevailing. This is exactly what we do find (Fig. 39).

Even among the basket-making Apache of the Southwest, we find objects of skin decorated with designs upon covered surfaces of beads. This is clearly an intrusion from the bison area because it is only now and then that we find identity between the designs on Apache baskets and objects of skin, each having a style of its own. On the other hand, these beaded designs are quite like those found far out into the buffalo country. These buffalo hunters did not decorate pottery, in fact, some did not even make it, but they did paint rawhide objects and, strange to say, even this freehand work was in geometric designs not at all unlike those in beads and quills. While the reason for this is not entirely clear, we note that all the beadwork is by women, who also paint the geometric designs, whereas the men who paint upon robes, tents, etc., use realistic figures. This suggests that the difference may be merely a matter of social convention.

An important problem is the origin of Plains art as a whole. Though we have shown that bead technique imposes textile